Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/84

 "though I should have been proud of receiving your commandant, I am very happy that he has seen proper to employ an officer so distinguished, and who, I am sure, is so amiable as yourself."

Duncan bowed low, pleased with the compliment, in spite of a most heroic determination to suffer no artifice to lure him into a forgetfulness of the interests of his prince; and Montcalm, after a pause of a moment, as if to collect his thoughts, proceeded—

"Your commandant is a brave man, and well qualified to repel my assaults. Mais, monsieur, is it not time to begin to take more counsel of humanity, and less of your own courage? The one as strongly characterizes the hero as the other!"

"We consider the qualities as inseparable," returned Duncan, smiling; "but while we find in the vigour of your excellency every motive to stimulate the one, we can, as yet, see no particular call for the exercise of the other."

Montcalm, in his turn, slightly bowed, but it was with the air of a man too prac-